


Bad Decision Dinosaur

by Sleepmarshes



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, black star is too strong for normal life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-21 13:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17044310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sleepmarshes/pseuds/Sleepmarshes
Summary: What had started as a thoughtful Christmas present for her weapon somehow lands Maka in jail with the world's most unnatural ninja in the godless realm of California.





	1. [8:1]

**Author's Note:**

> For an ancient tumblr prompt I received - something along the lines of 'soma, but one of them is in jail'
> 
> PS: this story is told out of order, but maybe still makes sense? that's the hope, anyway.
> 
> This is a minor edit/crosspost to prepare for future updates.

“Merry Christmas, I’m in jail.”

Soul’s grating sigh crackles through the phone line. “ _Any other time I’d say this is cool, ‘cept you’ve stressed me the fuck out and the fact that I hear **Black Star**  in the background doesn’t help._”

Maka shifts from one foot to the other. “I’m really really really really sorr–”

“ _I want you to know if you ever do this again, I’m just gonna straight-up call your dad._ ”

“Mrrgh,” she concedes into the greasy payphone. In her meekest voice, she tries, “Will you come get me out?”

“ _Not like I have a choice. How much is bail._ ”

“A lot.”

“ _Just yours– I’m not paying for **him.**_ “

”…A lo–“

" _Oh christ,_ ” he blurts, voice colored with dread, “ _wwwhhhhhy is your face all over the TV? And next to my **brother’s**_?”

She winces, shying away from the rest of the room, where her partner in crime is busy proclaiming to be the God of This Cell Block. “Um, well??”

“ _Stop -- nevermind. I don’t…_ ” he sighs again.  " _I'_ _ll be there in fifteen._ ”

“But! W-wait, we… we’re not exactly in Death City.”

A deathly silence rattles through the phone line and into her ear canal, heating her face with shame. “ _Oh, really._ ”

Maka sucks her lower lip between her teeth. Meanwhile, Black Star bursts out of his cell with the ease of a three-star meister being held captive by civilian law enforcement, casually tripping the panicked guards on duty to stroll to the phone. He plucks the receiver out of Maka’s hand and says, “Yeah sooooo San Fran’s a real drag. The police keep tazing me like it’s gonna hurt or something.”

“ _You’re in fucking Calif– Urgh, I hate you so much right now._ ”

“Hurry up man, nerdy-two-shoes won’t let me bust out ‘cause it’s ‘against the law’ or whatever.”


	2. [4:2]

She waits until Tsubaki is out on her morning jog before she enters the house and interrupts Black Star in the middle of a ridiculous weight lifting competition with himself.

“I need your help.”

The man transforms from self-absorbed body builder to self-absorbed good Samaritan in half a breath. “You have brought your grievances to the right deity. Whatta we doin’?”

Maka looks over her shoulder to double-check for Tsubaki. “I need to get to California and–”

 **“DENIED,”** he barks, forming a cross with his forearms as if to ward off evil. “I refuse anything that has to do with California or legends or any century besides this one.”

Maka attempts to not roll her eyes. It's a questionable effort. “ _Listen._  Before Soul comes back from assignment, I have to talk to his brother, but his agent is some crazy psycho and won’t let me! I gotta go to Califor–  **CHOP** – to  _San_ _Francisco_  and go to one of his Christmas performances.“ She takes a breath, shaking the sting out of her chop-hand. "But the symphony is sold out, so I have to be sneaky. And, unfortunately, you are the sneakiest person I know.”

Black Star peels himself off the floor with zero indication that he had been injured whatsoever. “So… you’re asking me for a free backstage pass to talk to Soul’s bro?”

“Y-yes. I guess?”

“Illegally.”

She puts her face into her hands. “Yes,” she admits, warning bells faintly ringing in her conscience.

“And then we kidnap him,” Black Star adds, expectant.

She scoffs, hands sliding off her face. “ _No_ _,_  we just need to talk to him, geeze.”

“Well that’s boring as balls.”

“Black Starrrr,” Maka whines. “This is important to me.”

“Uh huh. Still ain’t convinced that I must escort you to the godless realm of twelfth-century jackasses.”

“…They’re in need of a new omnipotent ruler?”

Black Star scratches his stomach, uninterested -– which speaks volumes about his hatred for the west coast and certain legendary weapons. “Ehhh…”

Maka puts on her best conspiratorial smile, leans forward with hooded eyes, and quietly divulges, “I also think Wes Evans’s agent might be some kind of hitman-slash-yojimbo-slash-secret spy type.  _Hardcore stuff._ Maybe.”

Maybe. Except not really -– though it’s a possibility, because all things are possible. So it’s not exactly a lie. But it is also possibly a lie.

“I’m in.” With Black Star’s eyes lit like firecrackers, they shake hands, sealing the deal. “Why you gotta see this guy so bad anyway?”


	3. [1:3]

Basically, she has acquired the best Christmas present in the history of humanity. She adds the finishing touches to their apartment, keeping the tinsel and garlands to a classy minimum, because her partner has a tendency to simply retreat to his room if she uses all of Blair’s decorations at the same time.

Soul isn’t due home from his meetings with Kid and the Coven for another two days, but everything is already set up and on display because she can’t help herself. The whole gesture is probably super cheesy, and he’ll more than likely call her a lame nerd for going out of her way so much to the point that it looks like she’s desperate, but she doesn’t care because he’s going to flip out when he sees this gorgeous thing.

She rubs a fingerprint smudge off the lid of the wooden record player. It’s not a pseudo-retro reproduction, but the real deal -– an antique she’d found at the bazaar in mint condition -– and she’d paid a pretty dead penny for it. She even had it checked out at an electronics store to make sure everything was up to audiophile standards.

Her chest puffs up as she admires the device atop the little end table she’d dragged into the living room, spying her cheerful reflection in the glossy surface.

…She should play a record in it, just to make sure it still works.

Excited, she hurries to Soul’s dark-curtained room without bothering to turn on the light, beelining for a stack of records he keeps on his desk. She knows just the album to try. She’d seen it a few days ago -– that worn, homemade record sleeve with his particular wavy doodles tattooed all over it -– and reverently lifts it off the top of the stack.

“ _There’s only two of these_ ,” he’d told her with fanboyish pride their first Christmas together. “ _My Gran’s trio recorded some awesome holiday swing for me and Wes a long time ago. Nothin’ compares_.”

So when she trips over his desk chair in the dark and the record slips from her hands to consequently shatter on the corner of the desk, Maka’s only option is to immediately  _panic._


	4. [6:4]

Her life has boiled down to this singular moment: shivering on the night before Christmas in a decorative shrub with Black Star, staking out her weapon’s brother’s estate like a desperate hooligan, and having possibly contracted rabies.

“Okay, so Plan B is to break in -–  _without actually breaking anything_ -– make a copy, and go the hell home without any more dog attacks,” she growls, absently rubbing her tender ankle. Her combat boots have a new set of tooth-punctures, and they hadn’t even come from a pre-kishin.

“Rabies can’t be that bad. Foaming at the mouth and going bonkers’d prolly be an improvement for you, really,” Black Star replies, prying open the clamshell casing around their new equipment recently charged to her mission credit card that she is most certainly not allowed to use on personal business such as this.

Maka elbows his ribcage. “We just got super spy gear so quit being such a grump.”

“Dude, I’m pretty sure you bought this at Radio Shack while I was taking a crap at Seven-Eleven.  **Also,**  fleeing like a weakling from a pack of swole-as-fuck guard dogs through a  _Christmas symphony_  is not a godly pastime. Retreating is not my biz. You’ve soiled me.”

“Yeah, yeah, California sucks. Help me find the security cameras.”

At this, Black Star pauses in opening the miniature vinyl-to-mp3 converter. “Cams to what?”

Gesturing through the shrub, she indicates the large estate in front of them. “To here, obviously.”

“Seriously?” The other meister squints through the boughs. “I thought this was a tourist place or zoo or somethin’. You sure you got the right addy?”

“This is the address Liz texted me… What do you mean ‘zoo’?”

“I seen a zebra a bit ago.”

“Shut up.”

“No, for real.”

“Did you eat the hot dogs at Seven-Eleven, because you’re hallucinating.”

“Whatever, man.”

“Who would keep zebras in California?”

Black Star gives her a look that implies she’s the one out of her mind, and she finds that rather offensive, to be honest. He peers at the estate, skeptical. “Well if this is the place...dude, Dee-Tee-Kay’s got competition.”

Maka grunts in agreement. With the tall steel palisade surrounding a sprawling property dotted with topiaries and fountains (and what might be covered parking for an ice cream truck?), Wes Evans’s house looked like a fortified palace. “Hopefully there isn’t a moat of dogs.”

After a few minutes of concentrated silence, Black Star frowns. “Fuggit,” he declares before exiting the bush like a personal limousine. “Place don’t even have have infrared. Lame.”

“What?” She climbs out of their hiding spot, absently trying to push the branches back into a less mutilated position. “Maybe the fence is wired?” she tries, hesitant.

“Oh.” Black Star walks up to the fence and boldly grabs one of the uppermost sections. Blinks. “Yeah, it’s hot.”

Maka openly stares at whom she considers to be the utmost freak of all nature. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

He shrugs.

Wars change people. She fidgets. “Well, if you can do it…”

Maka warily eyes the looming fence as she inches closer. As she’s caught between neither wanting to admit weakness nor classifying herself as another one of nature’s abnormalities, Black Star asks, “You wanna boost?”

Before she can even answer, he simply loops an arm around her stomach like hefting a rolled-up garden hose, and hurls her over with a ' _Hup!'_

She does not scream as she lands on the other side, but she does punch him after he scales the fence and hops over. His hands are steaming a little in the crisp air, but he doesn’t appear to notice.

Together they fall into silence, both refusing to admit they’re listening for dogs. Maka allows her Perception to bleed into focus, smiling triumphantly when she finds nothing with a canine signature. She makes a signal for the all-clear, and Black Star takes the lead, stealthily circling the property for a way into the mansion.

As expected, all ground-access doors and windows are locked. “Though there’s not even an alarm system,” Black Star grumbles, put out by her refusal to break in by force. “You owe me so much for this bogus-ass trip.”

“Oh, shut it.” Suspicion twists and sinks in her gut as they sneak around to the east side of the estate. “…No one has a mansion this ridiculous and only guards it with an electric fence and a couple of deadbolts. Let’s try that balcony we saw earlier.”

Bored, Black Star gives up becoming one with shadows and casually strolls in out in the open, hands propped behind his head. “Whatever. You’re boostin’ me this time.”

Maka’s jaw drops behind the air conditioning unit she’d been using as cover. “W-what? … _You_ _friggen ass, I should never’ve brought you–”_

“Your god is waiting~”

With a sigh, she forcibly reminds herself she had asked him to come here in the first place, and it gives her just enough strength to not choke him to death on Christmas Eve. Maka double-checks for witnesses before positioning herself beneath the balcony, knotting her fingers together.

She braces herself for a routine grab and lift, but as she watches Black Star running headlong in her direction, she gets another one of those familiar, gut-sinking premonitions she's been getting this entire trip -– because although she is not by any means a weak person, this is the guy who has weight-lifting competitions with himself whereas she is half his size and could be shot put by him had he the inclination -– and when his foot makes contact with her offered hands, he uses so much natural force that he stomps her into the ground and launches himself like a rocket.

He makes it to the balcony with ease; so effortlessly that Maka thinks her ‘assistance’ had merely been an excuse to make her stagger forward and nearly faceplant into a gigantic, metal trash can. In the act of stumbling over the damned thing, one of her hands catches on the lid and pops it off, Maka toppling the can and spilling its contents all over herself as she lands in a graceless heap.

Luckily, it had not been filled with garbage, but, “What  _is_ _this_ ,” she splutters, spitting gravelly crumbles from her mouth.

Just as Maka pulls her hand out of the mess, scrutinizing a fine pile of what might be some kind of chicken feed cupped in her palm, Black Star blurts from above, “Whoops. Oh  _shit._ Uh. Kishin at eight o’clock.”

Off to the left, hiding in her blind spot like a professional hitman, Maka hears a raspy  **“** _ **HONK,**_ **”** and gets all of half a second before her entire body is slapped by powerful wings. Panicked, she wildly punches in self-defense, fist connecting with central body mass, and is startled to witness not a kishin, but a swan as dark as Kid’s wardrobe squawking angrily as it tumbles backwards, feet over awkward, tangled neck.

This is when she realizes a whole bevy of the beasts stalking around her, eyeing the pile of feed she is still mired in. They circle and show off their wings, beady eyes glinting from the shadows. “Oh for the love of–”

_**“HONK.**_ **”**  The swan she’d punched looks more enraged than before, head bobbing low like an angry dog. If asked later, Maka would deny cautiously backing away from the mess of feed in recently-canine-traumatized fear, and would simply claim not to be an advocate of animal abuse. She backpedals faster when the swans begin to charge, and shrieks angrily at Black Star when they overtake her and start beating her with their wings.

It’s all she can do to keep her skirt plastered to her legs while being snapped at by foul-smelling beaks. “Black Star I swear to GOD–”

_“TAKE MY SCARF IF YOU VANT TO LEEV!_ ” he shouts from above in a truly horrible Schwarzenegger impression. Maka wraps an arm around the lifeline he dangles from above.

As she’s hoisted out of the swarm of swans, she stares at them, bewildered. “I can’t Perceive them at all!”

“No shit dude,” Black Star says, giving her a hand at the balcony’s edge. “Swans are soulless demons from the asscrack of Satan. That's just fact.”

Maka looks over the railing, watching the swans greedily feast upon the pile of feed she’d spilled. Rubbing a tender spot on her backside, she grumbles her thanks before asking, “Anyway, how’s the door?”

Apathetic, the other meister nudges open the sliding glass with a finger on the handle. “If it were any more open it’d be a convenience store,” he flatlines.

“Fiiine, I owe you a week’s worth of double cheeseburgers, geeze.”

“With mustard.”

_“With mustard._  Just scout the inside of the house already. And don’t. Break.  **Anything.** ”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t trust me or somethin’,” he says with a disdainful sniff, smoothly backing into the darkness of Wes Evans’s mansion while she rolls her eyes.

Maka crouches outside the sliding door, expecting to wait for a good five minutes while Black Star does his ‘ninja thing’, but only about fifteen seconds pass before she hears him ask, uncertain, “…You sure this is the right place? Because  _ho-ly_ _ **fuck** balls_.”

She allows herself a moment to control her homicidal rage before entering the house. “What,” she gripes, squinting in the darkness -– and then slams her hand over her mouth and nose. “It smells like a pet cage in here.”

And then her vision adjusts. The entire room appears to be  _breathing._

Black Star rubs his chin, perched on top of a storage cabinet in contemplation. “We can both agree the floor is moving, right?”

Something brushes along Maka’s ankles, and she looks down in a bemused kind of horror to discover the entire room is blanketed by  _bunnies, bunnies **everywhere.**_


	5. [3:5]

Liz scrolls through last-minute shopping deals on her tablet with a stylus shaped like retro cigarette holder. Lounging on a buttery leather couch in Kid’s living room, she says, “It’s that Evans Trio thing, ain’t it? He let me borrow it one time -– it’s real nice.”

Groaning, Maka presses her forehead into a lower rung of the stepladder she keeps steady for Patti, one arm still held above her head with a handful of tinsel for the younger woman to pinch from. “I tried contacting his brother ‘cause he has the only other copy, but his agent  _hung up on me._ ”

“Jerk,” Patti chirps, draping tinsel over the knotted neck of a mutilated giraffe ornament -– one of at least (and likely) eight hundred on the tree. “Let’s go punch ‘im!”

“Her,” Maka corrects. “…I think. Thanks for the sentiment, though. Very Christmas Spirit.”

“Ho ho ho, muthafu–”

“Why didn’t ya just say it was ‘Shib business?” Liz asks on a bored sigh.

Maka gapes at the elder sister from the ladder. “What? I wouldn’t lie about something like that!”

Continuing to scroll through her tablet, Liz replies, “Yet ya won’t text Soul to admit ya ruined his favorite, one-of-a-kind Christmas record.”

 **“** **Two** -of a kind, actually… a-and that’s different. It’s not lying, it’s…”

“Withholdin’ information?” Liz supplies.

Patti chimes in. “Cowardice?”

Maka's voice cracks when she says, “I was gonna tell him after I got a replacement, okay?” Patti does not look the least bit convinced, merely holding out a hand and making grabby motions. Maka opens another package of tinsel, offering it to her while grumbling, “Anyway, any ideas on how to bypass that overprotective agent?”

“Oh,” the sisters say in unison. Patti fishes her phone out of her back pocket and Liz finally looks up from her tablet.

“We can prob'ly hook ya up,” Liz says, reaching for her mug of eggnog on the coffee table.

Warning bells immediately surface in her mind. “…How?”

“Think of it as ‘social networking’,” Patti says, thumbs flying over her cellphone in a blur.

“Legal social networking, right?” Maka asks nervously. “As in  _legally?_ “

Neither sister answers, only giving her identical, enigmatic shrugs which are not the least bit convincing. This is when Maka is a rather nauseated to discover that her desperation to fix things before Soul comes back is apparently formidable enough to not voice any objection.

As she’s busy worrying about the accuracy of her moral compass, Patti’s phone vibrates with a notification. Within seconds, the phone is slapped to Maka’s cheek, and the line buzzes once. Twice.

“ _Evans,_ ” answers a garbled voice, competing with the background noise of deep-city traffic.

Maka fumbles for the phone with one hand while holding up tinsel in the other. “Uhh. Hi? Is this– Of course it is. I mean. Hello! My name is Maka Albarn, and I was hoping to ask you for a huge fa–”

“ _ **You**  again._” Maka’s gut plummets to her toes. A vaguely familiar click-click-click snaps in her ear, followed by a deep inhale. The speaker sighs. “ _How did you get this number?_ ”

“Uh… that doesn’t matter,” Maka says, though it probably does matter in a court of law, but that’s besides the point. “I really need to speak to Wes, please. It’s an emergency!”

Inhale. Exhale. Between honking horns and a distant police siren, Wes Evans’s agent replies, “ _It always is, with stalkers._ ”

“Stalkers!?”

 _“Stalkers, fangirls, creepers -– whatever you kids call yourselves these days._ ”

Maka involuntarily clenches unused tinsel in a white-knuckled fist.  “I’m  **not**  a -– I don’t even understand music, why would I stalk a violin-y person?”

After a silence, the agent says, “ _I’ll say that’s the first time I’ve heard that angle. The term is ‘violinist’, by the way. In any case, shouldn’t you defend yourself by saying you’d never stalk anyone rather than specifically a violinist?_ ”

Death’s mask, this is nearly as irritating as all the inane arguments she’s had with Soul. She groans. “Are we  _really_  having this conversation right now.”

“ _I’d rather wish we weren’t, so here is my obligatory statement where I tell you that if you try to contact my client again I will file a harassment report._ ”

At wit’s end, Maka says in her most serious voice, “This is official Shibusen business.”

The woman offers a smokey laugh around the loud roaring of engines. “ _If I had a **cent**  for every time I’ve heard that one, I’d be richer than Death, himself._”

The line dies with a button-mash. Maka stares at the phone in her hand in numb bewilderment until Patti slips it from her. “That’s it,” she says, reeling in agony.  “I’m screwed. He’s gonna hate me for the  _rest of my life._ ”

Liz scoffs without comment. Patti says, “Don’t be a dum-dum, he loooooves you.”

“D-don’t be absurd,” says Maka as her heart nervously lurches to her tonsils. “Besides, Soul doesn’t love anything more than music, it’s a fact of life.”

Nodding solemnly, Patti returns to draping tinsel on the tree. “True. You’re screwed.”

Maka whimpers, returning her head to the lower rung of the ladder with mild violence.

“Don’t make it worse, Pat,” Liz drawls, scrolling on her tablet again. “‘Sides, I’m a step ahead of ya. Wes Evans is performin’ at some Christmas charity deal in San Fran tomorrow night.”

With a gasp, Maka’s head whips up. “That’s not very far!  _I should just go in person._ ”

“Road trip, road trip~” Patti sing-songs with excitement, wiggling the ladder.

“ **But,** ”Liz says with a wave of her stylus in convincing, Hepburn-like grace, “it’s sold out. Might be scalpers, but you’d be competin’ with swaggy high-rollers. How much cash ya got?”

Maka suddenly remembers the state of her bank account after buying Soul’s Christmas present, and whatever color her face becomes is answer enough.

Patti pats her on the head. “Guess you’re stealthin’ it.”

“Yep. Have fun.”

“No  _way,_ ”she objects, looking between the two sisters like they’ve lost their minds. There’s a huge, morally-defining difference between a Shibusen mission and a symphony! “What are you saying, that I ninja into a  _charity_  event on Christmas Eve? That’s so messed up -– I’m not  ** _Black Star._** ”

The sisters exchange a silent look with each other before taking on identical cheshire grins. “…Black Star is, though,” says Liz.

Maka’s mouth opens and a big, useless nothing comes out of it. She can’t refute that kind of logic, and as she silently mourns over the present inaccuracy of her moral compass, she’s already forming a plan as to how to convince the loudest meister in existence to take a little trip to California.


	6. [5:6]

“WE CAN’T STOP HERE, THIS IS BAT COUNTRY.”

It’s intermission. His hand fists around her elbow, toting her along at breakneck speeds directly to the stage. With a dread she is slowly becoming accustomed to the longer this expedition of hers goes on, she questions if this is divine retribution for having the audacity to convince a loudmouthed thespian to help her ‘sneak’ into a black tie affair. She can already foresee her career going down in flames (or  **worse -** – her first impression to Wes Evans being this soon-to-be-even-more-mortifying moment in time: Maka Albarn, three-star meister, caught center stage at Davies Symphony Hall, standing next to Black Star while he preaches to the ‘twelfth century heathens', the resulting smartphone snapshots circulating Twitter until they land the front page of the D-City Epigraph just in time for Christmas).

So much for scoping out the path of least conspicuous. “What is your freakin’  _malfunction,”_ she hisses, catching up to his stride. “This is the exact opposite of being sneaky!”

Black Star does not answer, but he doesn’t exactly need to because an inordinate number of barrel-chested English Bulldogs have just rounded the corner, giving top-heavy chase through the well-dressed crowd mingling in the main foyer. Every last pudgy beast has LED reindeer antlers strapped to its jowly head, blinking festive and frenetic red and green. The cheery jingly bells on the ends only serve as strange, holiday-esque sirens announcing the dogs’ arrival.

Davies has great acoustics. The pack’s collective roar of noise is crystal-clear as the bulldogs cram through the double-doors of the auditorium and scramble down multiple aisles after the two meisters. Even the startled screams of the scant, still-seated audience members carry well. Soul would be impressed.

Maka runs faster.

“You are the worst ninja ever,” she cries, yanking her arm from Black Star’s grasp as they both leap for the stage.

“Well that’s just disrespectful,” Black Star says before swiping two music stands and twirling them so naturally it’s as if he’s been some kind of  _orchestra equipment meister_  since conception. “Who expects guard dogs at a charity event? You said ‘hitman-slash-yojimbo,’ not Hitchcock’s **The Bulldogs** –” and, despite all previous finesse, he inelegantly chucks the stands into a domino line-up of (terrifyingly expensive) string instruments left behind by the performers. “So really, this is your fault with your shitty briefing and false advertising.”

The cacophony of cellos and string basses fatally colliding into each other makes the blood drain from Maka’s face; somewhere in the witch realm, Soul is doubtlessly having an unexplainable pang: like a disturbance in the instrumental-snob force. To make matters worse, the resulting destruction doesn’t even deter the tidal wave of attack-dog from flowing around the mess. Maka scrambles over chairs, leaping from seat to seat as she resigns herself to the reality that she must hurdle a piano in front of San Francisco’s wealthiest philanthropists in order to survive.

“Hahah!” Defying gravity, Black Star runs across the length of the concave back wall with a cackle before climbing to the first tier of VIP seating. “Check it– that one has a Rudolph nose.”

Yes, well, evidently ‘Rudolph’ has been working out. The muscular bulldog’s piranha teeth sink into Maka’s combat boot just as she attempts to clear the piano. With a twist, she slips her ankle out of the dog’s jaws, but ends up skidding across the glossy top of the grand with all the squealing of a human windshield wiper. She tumbles off the other end, spouting a string of curses in reply to Black Star’s wheezing laughter.

“You’re the one who said we’re not allowed to kick anyone’s ass, quit bitching!” he says.

Huffing, Maka jumps for the tier, and they take a few leaping shortcuts to a stage-right exit. They are immediately met with a sea of instrument cases, open and waiting for their now-destroyed future occupants like black-shelled coffins. The guard dogs and all their slobber are catching up, so Maka and Black Star stumble their way down the hall, booking it until the path ends at an abrupt T.

They share a look, point in opposite directions, and hang a desperate right after Maka declares that _she_ hadn’t been the one to find the freaky reindeer dog show.

They only make it ten feet down the corridor before skidding to a halt. A dogpile of more antler-clad bulldogs wakes up from their cozy nap, hearing the commotion of their siblings around the corner.

“Well ain’t this some holly jolly bullshit,” says Black Star before the two of them about-face and haul ass for the nearest emergency exit. Rudolph and company are nipping at Maka’s coattails by the time the meisters find a heavy metal door being held ajar by a large stone -– which Black Star punts into interstellar orbit as he bursts through. Maka follows, slamming the door behind them.

“They’re too short for doorknobs, right?” she pants, slowly backing away from the door while it violently shudders from the chaos behind it.

He doesn’t bother answering her question, because out of sight is out of mind for Black Star. “Now what, genius masternerd? We can prolly get through ventilation, but the kishin’s pretty much outta the bag.”

“Whose fault is  _that,_ ” Maka snaps back. “And I didn’t make a plan B, seeing as I didn’t anticipate you  _sucking so bad_  with such a simple objective–”

“‘Secret spy’, you said. ‘Hardcore stuff’, you said!”

She’s about to tell him to shut his monkey face (and also where to shove his complaints at high velocity) when the lever on the door starts to pivot. Both meisters watch in awestruck, morbid curiosity as the door groans open to reveal the red-nosed, blinky-light leader of the pack, standing on hind legs with a paw casually draped over the door handle.

Maka tries to share a look with Black Star, but is shocked to find him  _missing._

“ **How are we even friends,** ” she shrieks, boots eating pavement as she catches up with him. The sounds of only Death knows how many dogs giving chase echo behind them as they round the corner of the building, breath puffing like freight trains in the cold night. “We’ve fought on the moon together, but you’ll leave me behind on Christmas Eve to be eaten alive by  _freakishly muscular attack dogs?!_ ”

“Tithe up– you gotta sacrifice cheeseburgers for that service.”

There is no earthly comparison for the frustrated noise that gurgles out of Maka’s mouth, and maybe this is why it catches the attention of a long-limbed woman in a crisp suit leaning against the side of the building, who appears to be trying to take a smoke break.

Maka only glances at this innocent bystander for three quarters of a second, but in this fleeting instant she takes in a few key bits of information:

Firstly, the woman is wearing sunglasses even though there is certainly no sun at this time of night;  
  
Next, there’s a golden zippo lighter in the her left hand, click-click-clicking as she tries to light a cigarette;

And last, the  _antlers._

Despite the dark shades, Maka simply knows (by way of the ice pouring down her spine) that eye contact has been made, and she impresses Black Star with her sudden burst of speed.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> note: no actual cellos were harmed during the making of this disaster


	7. [2:7]

“ _This is Katherine._ ”

In hindsight, calling up the number she’d pried from the depths of Wes Evans’s official website with her head still spinning from Krazy Glue fumes might not have been the best move. “Hi! Uh. Is this the agency for Wes Evans? I’d like to–”

Eternally bored does not describe the voice on the other end of the line with nearly enough justice. “ _Do you have business with my client_ ,”the woman asks with no hint of a question mark.

“I– Not, erm, professionally, but this is an urgent m–”

**Click.**

Maka pulls the phone away from her ear and, sure enough, the screen tells her the call has ended. She grinds her teeth, cursing under her breath as she redials.

“ _This is Katherine_.”  
 _  
_“Hi! I’d like to set up an interview with Mister Evans.”

The resulting silence on the line causes Maka’s mouth to twitch into what can only be described as a self-satisfied, Soul-approved smirk.

“ _…I’m transferring you to Scheduling. Please hold_.” There’s an uncomfortable clatter and some rustling noises, so Maka simply leans back into the living room couch and waits, pleased she’ll be talking to someone who is hopefully a thousand times less rude.

Ten seconds pass, and while it's mildly surprising that there's a lack of any distorted elevator music while she’s on hold, she does hear  _something_. Maka mashes the phone to her ear, straining to pick out faint background noises. There’s a low, mechanical whine suggesting a powered car window; a crinkle of cellophane, some rhythmic click-click-clicking, and sigh soon follow.

It might be the glue fumes clouding her judgement, but it sure as hell sounds like someone is in the middle of a smoke break. Before Maka can screech into the phone for anyone to pick up, there’s another muffled clatter.

“ _This is Scheduling_ ,” someone says in the exact same voice and cadence as Katherine. Maka only just catches herself from crushing the cellphone in her hand. “ _My client’s next available slot is the week of Easter_.”

Reeling, she slides off the couch and onto the floor, irritation overtaken by shock. “E-Easter? No, you don’t understand -– I need to talk to him immediately, as in preferably  **today**.”

“ _Uh-huh. And what magazine, paper, or station do you represent?_ ”

“I’m–“ She winces alone in the living room. Sighs. ”…not a reporter.“

**Click.**

Maka nods, unsurprised. She'd walked right into that one. She doesn’t bother swearing this time as she immediately redials.

“ _Flat learning curve, I see_.” _  
_

“I call it perseverance, thank you. Look, it is nearly Christmas and it is imperative that I talk to Wes before–”

“ _My client is extremely busy during the holiday season, so either get a clue or talk to someone who cares_.”

Growling at her coffee table, Maka throws all amiability to the wind and spits, “I feel bad for Wes’s career if **this** is the kind of quality his agency upholds.”

“ _Mmhm._ _Tell that to his bank statement with a straight face_.” _  
_

“Grinch.”

“ _I’m blocking your number_.”  
 _  
_“Smoking is bad for you.”

**Click.**

Maka shrieks.

She tosses her phone to the coffee table, next to the horrifically lopsided record she’d glued back together. She glowers at its inelegance, the newspaper she’d spread underneath it as a drip guard for the glue having inevitably attached itself like a grade-school arts and crafts project. It's tempting to simply break the poor thing again and put it out of its misery.

Rubbing violent circles into her temples, she decides more help on this mission is required. It’s probably a bad idea, but as she picks up her phone once more and dials Kid’s mansion, she plans on blaming glue fumes (and agents named Katherine) if things go awry.


End file.
